


These three worn words (that we whisper).

by LuciferIsSatan



Category: The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Canon Divergence, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Post- Battle of Five Armies
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-30
Updated: 2017-06-30
Packaged: 2018-11-19 01:46:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11303199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LuciferIsSatan/pseuds/LuciferIsSatan
Summary: After the Battle of Five Armies, Thorin knew he wasn't suppose to wake up; he knew he couldn't have..-shouldn't have, but despite this, he was here and alive and breathing and he knew in his core that nothing was right.





	These three worn words (that we whisper).

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: This story is heavily influenced from a previous work I've done over in the Spn fandom called "[Start From the End (Repeat Your Part Again)](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3609288)".
> 
> Also I basically refused to carefully beta read this and I apologize. If something is really terribly miss-worded/ misspelled/ the grammar is atricious/terrible mischaracterization, please feel free to let me know so I can go in and adjust so it's easier for all y'all to read. This isn't going to be super long, mostly just a small project for the time, but despite this: Enjoy!

There was no brimming white light in the Halls of Mahal when Thorin awoke.

The sounds, however, were plentiful. Of chatting behind closed doors, the muffled thuds of heavy boots against stone and the hefty clank of armour on armour. Thorin could make out the distant sounds of metal clashing and the air ducts humming in tune to the rhythm of the mountain; could distinguish the far away laughter and booming shouts that followed. He could hear movement like music, allowing him a moment to breathe, the air warm with friction and alive around him. Mindfully, Thorin moved his head against its feathered-filled support and it was then he noticed the softness against his cheek, the heavy weight draped over him; a quilt, he pieced together, a thick quilt of clouds and for some strange reason he couldn't imagine it being anything else.

He felt warm. Thorin noted the lack of aches that use to trouble his shoulders and back. Fingers curling against the sheets, he didn't know how to feel; It was over. Everything he had worked for, everything he had done - his struggles, his hurts and his blind foolish bravery, would only be remembered in..- Thorin recoiled in mourning. Thorin, the Lost King Under the Mountain; last King of the Durin folk..- a fool. He was a fool and a coward. What he did - _Oh Mahal_ , he felt a thickness well up in his throat, what he _did_ to his Company, his friends, his _burglar_ -

Almost as soon as the thought crossed him, his thoughts were interrupted. A soft groan mere inches from his ear, fluttering, muffled, but certainly not of his imagination. Fear clutched him, as did confusion as he thought he would wake up in the Halls entirely alone until he emerged from stone; his thoughts fell to an invader in his chambers, then to family.

Thorin grimaced, shifting uncomfortably. Kili and Fili-

Thorin could feel his chest tighten at the thought. They would be here too. He could only wonder if they'd ever forgive him for what he's brought them to. Two young dwarrows, awaking too soon into Halls they shouldn't have had to be welcomed into for many years to come.

Thorin heard another groan, this time a ghost of the breath of before, reminding him of the soft brush of wind against fallen leaves, somehow feeling oh so familiar that the dwarrow could feel it through every inch of him. An abrupt shudder traveled his spine in response to the soft intake of air that followed, reminding him of late nights with so few stars lighting up the sky; of hushed words against his ear as small hands traced a celestial game of connect the dots, spinning stories with little more than a whimsical breath filled with smoke and drenched in honey.

Thorin struggled to force his heavy eyes to open, daring the warmth to consume him after being so separate for far too long. He knew he was prolonging the inevitable, and soon he must join the others that had followed him to the same fate. Yet, with a heavy heart, he found a lack of strength in his body at the prospect; he can't face his sister-sons. He can't face the fallen who served so proudly under his command. Despite this, a sharp intake of air forced him to store those self deprecating thoughts somewhere he can hide them. Carefully, he cracked an eye open, blinking a few times to adjust to the dim lighting as a yawn touched his lips; strange, it would seem, that he would feel tired in the afterlife. Nevertheless he blinked the bleariness from his vision, his mouth feeling oddly dry at the sight of warm ginger brown hair, curly and splayed out against the pillow not too far from where his own head rested.

Hair too curly and too short to be that of a dwarrow, with narrow smooth shoulders and large pointed ears too delicate. Thorin had no need to see the others face to know who it was.

 _Bilbo is a hobbit_ , Thorin thought to himself, his body frozen in indecision on whether to wake the creature or escape from the bed, which happened to _be_ a bed after all, instead of clouds as he had momentarily assumed; _Bilbo is a child of Yavanna, not of Mahal. He wouldn't be in these Halls-_ , and yet Thorin ached to see his face and be for certain. If those honey curls were not of the halflings, then who was it that resided by his side?

Thorin was quick to realize that his question would quickly be answered as he heard yet another sharp intake of air, the body just inches away suddenly shifting as small arms moved up into a stretch as the half-asleep creature moved to lay on his back.

The round face made it into the dwarrows line of horrified sight, the slight puckered lips, rounded nose and hairless chin. Fear clenched the dwarrows heart once tired eyes blinked open. Thorin could see those warm summer eyes, soft as spring showers, that lazily found their way to his face, and just how fondly the homely creature smiled.

"Thorin," like honey, his voice seemed to melt, warm as the heat of the forges and the comfort of falling into thick covers after a long day. It was a ' _good morning_ ' as it was a ' _hello_ ' and ' _how do you do?_ '. "You're never up this early, trouble sleeping?"

His tongue felt thick and useless in his mouth, words impossible and furthest from his thoughts. This was Bilbo. Bilbo was here. In the grand Halls of Mahal, no matter how impossible it seemed. He was here.

He died that day. Thorin could do nothing as he felt the grief rise up to fester in his throat; something thick and wrong settled in his gut as his thoughts whirled to understand. The halfling's words were as lost to him as they were confusing. He spoke as if this were a natural occurrence. As if he didn't find waking up on the wrong side of the afterlife something not to fret over when he belonged in Yavanna's green fields and pastures.

 _He belongs in his home back in the Shire,_ Thorin thought with an uncomfortable amount of dread, _with his books and his armchair. Bilbo should not have died during that battle. Azog had been slain, and still someone had taken this brave little creatures life._

Something on the hobbits face seemed to shift from content to concern, his brows furrowing as a hand reached up to brush over the dwarrows face. Thorin might have flinched away in surprise, had he not been so caught up in the way Bilbo pushed up onto his elbows and the flash of something silver by his ear finally caught Thorin's eye.

"Is there something wrong?" Bilbo asked gently, his thumb tracing under the dwarfs eye, brushing over the cheekbone lying there. Thorin's heart did something complicated in his chest at the touch, which only worsened the matter as his sight settled over the precious, small bead, hanging in the hobbits hair. It wasn't just any silver bead, it was most certainly a make of mithril. Tracing the shapes he could just barely make out, of acorns and leaves engraved into the metal, as his eyes worked their way higher to the simple braid that it clung to. The twist of honey stitched hair in a braid so painfully familiar that his throat felt dry and he could not resist the urge to reach out and brush his fingers over it. Where grace once held him, he seemed to fumble, his fingers feeling too large and too rough for something so small and delicate looking; mithril or not.

"Nightmare?" if Thorin hadn't already been so impossibly aware of the hobbit, he might have jolted away at the sound of the soft voice. Instead, he didn't know what to think.

He wondered if this was just an illusion created by Mahal to appease him. If this was the Halls, just different than he had originally thought it to be; giving him a chance to say all the things he wanted to say to that brave little hobbit but never had the chance, nor the courage. If all of this was just a prize for everything he's gone through, or a punishment for what he could have had.

Bilbo never knew. No, he could not have known what he meant to the King.

Thorin was painfully aware of all the missed opportunities, of all the long treks they made side by side. How fearless his little hobbit had been, and yet, how afraid. Bilbo had been starved, pushed about, tossed under, and neglected. He had been overwhelmed by goblins, and nearly eaten by trolls; almost scorched by a dragon, and betrayed by those he'd call friends. Desolate situations leaving him worse for wear and thinking of home.

Yet, Bilbo outwitted the trolls, and took on his share of violence. He held his own against the orcs, and stood tall against Azog where many would not. He faced the dragon and still he wanted nothing more than to help the dwarrows have a home, thinking nothing of the gold that was his claim, but rather the people who had treated him poorly, where he had done nothing but hold each at a high regard. His brave little hobbit at the battlements, hanging over the ledge -

"Something like that," Thorin murmured once he was sure the words wouldn't sound so thick on his tongue. His hand brushing over the soft cheek just inches from the braid, it felt right against his palm. Warm and rosy and full, as seemed to be the rest of him, with his soft belly poking through the blankets; provided for, it seemed like. Just as soft, if not more so, than what he had been back when they had first met in the Shire.

Thorin wanted to ask about the battle, just to see if any of this was as real as he wanted it to be. If it could be as real as he desired. If perhaps he was dealing with some ill effect with his memories, as Bifur had after the incident with the axe. Perhaps this was really Bilbo, lying beside him, warm and soft and wonderfully his. Yet, a fear stayed his tongue, and opted to say nothing.

To something of his surprise, and ultimately his confusion, when he finally left the bed hours later. He found Dis in the grand halls, and something hadn't sat right with him at that. He knew she should still be in the Blue Mountains, and someone with her stubbornness wouldn't have left so soon. At first, with no small amount of dread, he thought she had faded after news of what had come of her sons; yet, he found, she had no children here. Kili and Fili don't exist.

What had seemed like a perfect morning had changed into something more than unsettling. Mahal must have gotten something wrong, if he thought that his Halls could ever be perfect without his sister-sons here. Yet, Frerin was alive and well, on journey across Middle-Earth doing only Mahal knows what, while Thorin is rather unclear of what had come to happen to his father and grandfather. The more time he spent about his kingdom, the more began to unravel, leaving him far more dissatisfied and confused than he would have liked.

Erebor had never been attacked, Smaug had never come. Not only that, but he has no idea where any of the members of his company were either. Balin had always been the royal adviser, and yet him and his brother were no where to be found. Not a soul seems to know their names, nor was there any trace of the Ri brothers, or ever the family of Ur. Days had turned to weeks, and weeks spiraling into months and once years have come and gone, he's almost certain he dreamed the whole quest up. Yet he couldn't help but shake the feeling that something wasn't right. The only comfort he got, was in his hobbit, who was so painfully familiar and yet, Thorin could never say that this was truly the same hobbit he had swooped off into his folly quest to reclaim his kingdom.

It wasn't until he had lost him from a strain of illness that had taken his Consort away from him, was he sure that he hadn't imagined the quest. It was when Bilbo was taking his last, laboured breaths, looking at his husband through his white hair and weary smile that showed so much affection and sadness that it was too much to bear, that Thorin realized he wasn't in the Halls of his maker, for the hurt that he felt was too real, and his maker would never be so cruel as to take Bilbo away from him.

The kingdom was in mourning for the lost Consort, but it had hit no one harder than it had the King, who was quickly fading. Long nights spent alone in Bilbo's garden, unable to tend for the herbs that his consort had loved so much, without breaking further away in the process. The plants wilted from neglect, as the king found himself unable to function, and he prayed to whomever could still be listening that they show him this one kindness and stop this torment they've forced him to suffer through, allowing him each day, alone and cold and growing too old too soon.

One morning he simply didn't get up.

Thorin woke up as a blacksmith in the Ironhill's.

His father was a simple merchant and his mother took such pride in her stitching. They called him 'Balder' rather than Thorin, which meant something, although the translation in Westron was lost on him.

His mother, whose name he never learned, had sent him out to retrieve more thread from the market once she had realized she'd run out of the blue. It was a cold and windy Trewsday afternoon, his coat feeling awfully thin as he walked from stall to stall, tucking his hands into the holes of his coat and wondering if she'd mind if he were to ask her to stitch them up. It wasn't too difficult to spot the overhang of cloth from so far away, and he was quick to rush forward and take a look at the material, the coins heavy in his pocket as he reached for them, but freezing in motion as he finally saw the merchant with his bright smile and big feet. It was Bilbo.

His hair was a firey red, and his nose much larger and belly rather round, but although he looked nothing like the hobbit, he was most, undoubtedly, Bilbo. Thorin didn't know how he knew, he just did. The hobbit gave him an odd look when he noticed the dwarrow staring, asking him a question that seemed to snap him out of his thoughts of a wilting garden and the round green door of Bag End when he asked, rather numbly, how much his thread cost by the pound. The day left him shortly after he had retreated from the market, and with a hop in his step, returned to the same booth a week later with a meager but full-hearted attempt at prompting conversation with the hobbit, which Bilbo, or as he was called _Hildigrim_ , mused him with and they spoke of his home and the conversations became a regular occurrence between the two of them. Sometime, Bilbo even seemed pleased to see him.

Thorin had gained enough nerves to ask if the halfling would be willing to join him for a drink at the nearby pub, which, much to Thorin's giddy relief, he accepted in stride.

They lived for a long while after that, and this time at the very least, Thorin can remember gifting the hobbit with a courting bead, and seeing first hand the joy that broke over the creatures face at the prospect. He can remember every gift he made, and every flower he received, and the years seemed to slow down after that.

They lived, and they died on the road when a pack of Orcs came across their sleeping bodies; forcing the last sight of this world to be Bilbo's screaming as they held him on his knees, with an axe falling swiftly to his neck.

Thorin is a Ranger.

It's impossibly strange being in the body of a man, as he's grown to learn their customs, and accidentally enrages a handful of dwarrows when Khuzdul slips from his lips by mistake. He spends much of his time patrolling across Middle-Earth, and it's in this life, he realizes that he has no idea what has ever happened to Gandalf. He doesn't remember him in his past, and he's still yet to come across the rest of the Company; yet he thinks of those trivial things little, and worries more over the attacks of Goblins on this side of the Misty Mountains.

He never meets Bilbo in this life, and perhaps, he thinks, it's for the best. But sometimes he can find himself humming those same faded songs he remembers his love used to sing when he worked on his tomato's, or tap his fingers along to a tune no one else could hear but him, still ringing in his ears as if they weren't a fading thing in his memory.

Time skips and he's a captain, the year is lost on him but he know's he's sometime in the Second Age, and so far away from the comforts of the Third that he's not quite sure how he keeps on as well as he does. Thorin would consider himself quite the pirate if his morals weren't too beggaring, but he picks up lost souls and they sail all across Belegaer and the East Sea, looking for nothing in particular, although his sailors speak of nothing but gold until they set port on the coast of the Westlands where he comes across a grown man in nothing but threads and the jolt in his heart tells him everything he needs to know about the man.

His body is collapsed and there is blood coming out of his nose, his breathing all but weak, and it takes little time for his sailors of men and women to help the man onboard.

In another, he's a general, and Bilbo is a soldier, and they fight side by side, and Thorin finds himself falling in love all over again; hopelessly lost when the war is over and the light in Bilbo's eyes have all but faded from the gore, but his face is still bright, and Thorin falls in love with his spirit like he had all those years ago, even though Bilbo's hair is now long and dark, and he's dreadfully thin around his middle with his heart belonging to another.

Bilbo cannot love him in this life, and Thorin can't help but wonder about the woman who had so easily charmed his burglar's heart, and hoped that she cherished him almost as much as Thorin did. If she loves him just as passionately.

Sometimes Bilbo doesn't exist in these lives, as they pass on further still. Sometimes the hobbit can't find it in himself to love the man he once fought a dragon for, and these were the lives that Thorin found were the hardest to live. Sometimes when he finds him, he's already a life built for him, a spouse and perhaps some children, and little mind for a dwarrow whom he cannot remember.

Sometimes in these lives, they never really meet. Sometimes it's something as swift as a brush of the sleeve in a crowd, when Thorin never get's the chance to say hello. It's in these lives he's never sure whether to pursue him and face the heartache that is to come, or to leave the other be, and hope for the best. Often times it isn't even an option, never a question, and the dwarrow at heart would turn in search for him, feeling desperate that perhaps this might be the life where perhaps he'll have a chance to tell him of how sorry he was. Of how much he misses the sound of his humming, and the laugh that reminded him of wind chimes and warm fires, and a smile that brought him back to a time of honey curls and a freckled nose with a love so fierce it left him shattered once it was gone.

Thorin often times found himself in a constant search, like a broken metronome that only ticks one way.

The ache is worth it. For Bilbo, it would always be worth it. The tears in his chest and gaps in his heart were all he could give sometimes, and sometimes it was enough.

And sometimes he gets to him too late.

It's 1693 of the Second Age, and the war of the Elves and Sauron had begun. Thorin had wished that these sights would stay stories than his reality. In this life, he's deported to the front lines to Moria and he's nearly forgotten how beautiful this wonder of dwarvish architecture could look, especially in the making, yet his thoughts were stolen from him when he meets a scribe.

In this life, Bilbo is a woman, and her name is Guðrún and Thorin could have cried knowing of the future of what is to happen to Moria and to even her is she were to stay; in an abrupt fit of desperation he tells her of the Library of Rivendell that's become rapidly something to admire, even if it physically pains him to admit that Elves have something that's superior, but it catches her attention and all Thorin can hope for is that she get's as far away from this Mahal forsaken place before it's overrun. They spend an afternoon together with a mug of mead each, and by the morning, she's off with the promise of writing once she gets to the gates. 

Thorin isn't blind to the news of a band of dwarves heading west having gotten slaughtered a week after her leave.

Sometimes Bilbo is lost in these lives, or perhaps Thorin is too far away for their lives to ever intertwine. Sometimes Bilbo is a child, or he's dead long before Thorin ever got the chance to try. Life after life, and Thorin can remember every single one of them; every passing breath, and strangle cry, every laugh, and every brilliant smile, and yet Bilbo never recognizes him for who he is, or what they were. Never remembers his name or the time they've shared together.

Sometimes they're soldiers, and sometimes they're bandits. They're knights, warriors, tea drinkers, and farmers. They're merchants, princes, and princesses; dragons riders and dragon slayers. Of Elves, and Dwarves, and Hobbits, and Ents, they're the Men of Valar, or the lone traveler of Middle Earth; sometimes they're on opposite sides of the war, where Thorin has realized too late where his sword has strayed. They're children from the same stone, and grown in the same garden. They're friendly rivals at different booths across from one another, and fellow rangers passing by on a calm day. They're childhood friends, and lost souls in the desolation. They're colleagues, masters, friends, brothers, and lovers.

They're the ugly souls left after so much as been lost. They're the stubborn ones that cling to their arms, and walk among the dead.

He meets the hobbit at the ends of the earths, where the Valar is now only creating the mountains and they muse over what is to come in the future. Where he is not a he, and Thorin finds himself laughing to some ridiculous tune as Bilbo moves her feet as her dress twirls over her hips, lips falling apart with a laugh as she takes his hand and moves him further under the Party Tree; he finds Bilbo when his grin is anything but innocent, and blood stained his hands, to lying on moist grass after a gentle rain, looking up at a clear night sky where the clouds have passed and the stars are so bright.

They live in the mists of a forest, joined by Ents and trailing along river bends. The live on the edge, where Bilbo finally seems comfortable in his role as a burglar, his grin sickeningly sweet and coy as he distracted yet another with his charms, and Thorin finds himself with more gold that night so they can feed themselves for another few days. It was the sound of footsteps thudding over dirt paths, and knitted white sweaters roaming through a wheat field. It was the silent prayers, and the forbidden touches where no one else could see. The lingering kisses along jaw lines, and misplaced words, and that adrenaline that never seemed to falter at the prospect at getting caught.

Thorin often found himself praying these days for this life to be the last.

The last time he has to watch this brave soul be taken from him, or from his own needless attractions. The last time he has to see his arms spread out like wings, reaching for the tide of the winds to change, as his feet step over the edge with no foreseeable bottom in sight. To never see the sad smile that adorned his lips when he fell softly to rolling fields to mountain ledges. Where his feet would walk themselves to exhaustion, or losing all self from starvation where he would refuse himself anything to save himself as the guilt eats away at him; Prays that it's the last time he has to mourn over a fallen body in battle with shattered bones and torn skin, where in the next life he would press a thousand kisses along, where their blankets are plentiful and neither wish to start the day.

He see's Bilbo with bright hair and long legs and a laugh too big for his body. He sees him with a viscous streak, and a sneer that made up for his size. He's seen Bilbo lost to madness, where his mind has been consumed and Thorin was helpless to save him from himself. In tattered boots and dark circles and a terribly mad look in his eye, where he's the judge, jury, and executioner. Mad and vile with no trace of his hobbit in those eyes that darken when the sun falls.

Thorin prayed desperately for it all to just stop. Screaming to the Valar until he's blue in the face and his throat is raw and he's out of tears to shed. But they live, and they die, and it's the only consistency between these lives that ever seems to stay the same, as it's the only steady arch that he can follow as he continues to live through it all.

He wishes he would just..- _wake up_ \- from this everlasting nightmare that he had once foolishly thought had been a gift. He wishes he could just one day open his eyes, and he's still just Thorin Oakenshield, lying on the battlefield, and Bilbo is hovering above him, with his soft mussed up honey threaded curls and dirt covered cheeks, and Thorin can barely remember the sound of his voice. Where Azog had been slayed, and his nephews are alright and being taken back to medical tents as the war had been won.

He wants to hear Balin's voice again, and share another laugh or two with Dwalin. He misses the way Dori fussed over his brothers, and Ori's soft temperament as he scribbled away in one of his leather books that had somehow survived the trip, or how Nori and Bofur would be the liveliest during the nights of their journey with their songs and their dances as they tried to make light of all that has happened and what was to come. He missed Oin's terrible bedside manner, and the stories of Gloin's son and wife back home in the Blue Mountains, and wondered whether Gimli had made his father proud. Thorin even missed the slight idle conversations he had with Bifur, and even Bomburs warm food over the fire during an exceptionally uneventful night.

But most of all he missed his sister-sons. He missed their pranks and joyous mannerism, and how they always seemed to get into trouble even when they hadn't intended to in the first place. He missed their scheming and their and laughter, seeing their bright eyes and unruly hair they barely tried to tame. Fili would have made such a good king, he thought, the kind the Erebor deserved after all the hardships that it had faced; and Kili, Kili was so skilled with his bow, he was bright and kind and dedicated despite still being a child, and he would have made his father proud.

Still, he thought of his hobbit. Hollowly he missed what he once was, of what they never had. _His_ Bilbo.

The fussy hobbit from the Shire who was reluctant to join on their quest. The one who thought only of his home, but gave his all for the dwarrows that he's come to call his friends. He missed the freckles scattered upon his cheeks, and his unruly hair, and that soft slight smile he did whenever he felt particularly pleased about something; whether it was a warm bath, or having survived another day, it was always a sight to behold. Thorin missed hearing Bilbo speak of his home in Bag End; of his armchair, and garden, and books, with his warm fire lit by soft embers, and a nice cup of tea in arms reach.

He thought of the halflings sacrifices he made along the quest; his selflessness and bravery and kindness to those undeserving, himself included.

Thorin wished he could have seen him in his own element. With his wonderfully large fuzzy feet kicked up, with the fire spreading out an orange glow that settled over his den like an old friend. His tea going cold as he's become lost in the story settled on his lap, with his hair falling over his face, and lips parted in thought. Thorin couldn't help but wonder what he would have been reading.

And maybe one day he'll wake up, and he'll be Thorin Oakenshield once again, and Bilbo will just be Bilbo, and with the rest of the company, and they'll all be alright if not somewhat scratched up and bruised; but they would be alive and that's what mattered most. Maybe he would even get a chance to start over, and perhaps him and Bilbo would meet with a different circumstance, and he could retire in the Shire with him, rather than risk his life with a dragon, and maybe he could have that chance to tell him all the things he's been dying to say. But that was a few hundred lifetimes ago, and his memories are growing fuzzy, but they're there, and he's still here, and Bilbo may never be Bilbo again, and Thorin has to live with the notion that he perhaps never will.

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this over a year ago and I never posted it because there was a lot about it I didn't like; however, recently, I found it hidden in some old drafts and an actual story for this hit me and I figured I'd give it another go. Thank you all for reading!


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